Mirror, Mirror | ✓

•Prologue• Ava

Normally, hearing Julia talking about moving on so simply would've infuriated me, but today, I found some truth in her words. I knew she was right. I couldn't spend the rest of my life thinking about her. I had to move on. I had to learn to be happy again.

"Hey, um... Who's the girl who was in here earlier?" I asked casually. Julia smiled. "That's Holly. Today was one of her good days. She reminds you of her, doesn't she?" I liked how Julia knew me well enough to not bring her name into the conversation. Just hearing her name was sometimes enough to set me on edge.

I smiled back. "She does. I thought it was just me who thought that." Julia looked me straight in the eye and spoke calmer than I'd ever seen her. "Ava, do you ever feel like you could've been the one to stop her if only you had another chance?"

I nodded, unsure where this was headed. I thought today's topic of discussion was moving on, not redemption. However, I didn't dare to argue with Julia in that moment. "Well, here's your chance. Be there for Holly. I think she needs a best friend now more than ever."

I tensed. I didn't think I heard her correctly. I didn't think I wanted company. Not yet, anyway. My grieving period still wasn't over. I needed time. Everything inside me screamed 'no'. Before I could even process what I was doing, I nodded my head. "I'll do it."

Julia gave me that smile that told me she knew that would be my answer all along. I despised that look. I mean, just because she's a therapist doesn't mean she knows everything about me. Sometimes I could be unpredictable too!

"So what's wrong with her?"I asked, before I could stop myself. I didn't mean for it to come out rude; it was a genuine question. No one came for therapy sessions for the heck of it- there was always some kind of trigger. Either family issues, lost loved ones or some or the other disorder. I placed my bets on the former. Holly seemed more or less normal to me. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

Julia cut me off. "It's okay, don't worry about it. DID. Dissociative Identity Disorder. She wakes up every day thinking she's someone else." My eyes widened in horror. "You mean.... every day?" I asked slowly, my mind still registering what she was saying. It seemed slightly impossible to think the calm, confident girl who I'd just seen walking out of the office was going through something that difficult on a daily basis.

"Well, not exactly. Over the past three years we've noticed she's taken to switching between three distinct personalities. They have names, backgrounds, characteristics, everything. It's kind of amazing, actually, to see how her mind works."

I almost gasped aloud. "So including her normal self she's totally four different people in one?"

Julia nodded. "Now, look, I know that this sounds very interesting, but you have got to understand that this isn't easy for her. DID comes with frequent memory loss issues too. Not to mention the complications there are while making friends, adjusting to school life...."

"Wait. Memory loss? I don't get it."

Julia put her hands down on the table. "Okay. Let me explain everything in simpler terms. Sometimes Holly wakes up as just Holly. Holly has an older sister away at college, her mom passed away giving birth to her and her dad comes home just in time for dinner every night. She has a boyfriend, Will, whom she was best friends with since childhood and he asked her out on her sixteenth birthday and they've been together since. Holly has a normal teenage girl's life. When she's normal, she's Holly.

"But then there are those days when she's abnormally excited or jumpy and simply enthusiastic. When she was little her grandfather's visits were the one thing that always made her smile. He used to give her a bouquet of daisies every time he came over. Hence, her subconscious took over the name Daisy. Whenever Holly's in a good mood, nervous, excited or just cheerful, she becomes Daisy. See, Holly was only introduced to her grandfather when she was Daisy, so technically when she went back to Holly, she forgot he even existed."